Federal 100: Dmitri Alperovitch

Dmitri Alperovitch was the man on the spot when Google and other organizations in the private and public sectors came under cyberattacks last year.

Alperovitch, who leads McAfee’s work in Internet threat intelligence analysis, correlation and visualization, was able to identify the vulnerabilities exploited by the attackers following the disclosure of the attacks in January by Google. Microsoft subsequently patched the vulnerabilities.

Alperovitch and his team at McAfee reached out to government agencies, conducting more than 50 in-person meetings and conference calls to help determine if the agencies had been affected by the attacks.

Alperovitch dubbed the incident Operation Aurora, a name derived from the file path on the attacker’s computer; the name has stuck.

FCW investigated efforts by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to improve a joint data repository on military and veteran suicides. Something as impersonal and mundane as incomplete datasets could be exacerbating a national tragedy.